


when this kiss is over (it will start again)

by summerdayghost



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Ambiguity, Brother/Brother Incest, Canonical Character Death, Do Not Archive, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-27 10:49:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17765381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerdayghost/pseuds/summerdayghost
Summary: Moments from the beginning of a haunting.





	when this kiss is over (it will start again)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darlingargents](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingargents/gifts).



> The title was taken from the song Heaven by The Talking Heads.

The day after Danny’s funeral Tim’s mom called. It was certainly unusual as far as things went. She wasn’t the sort to call him in general much less the day after she had just seen him. Usually Tim called her.

She said she wanted to make sure Tim was safe. Danny was buried within walking distance of their childhood home. Tim very much did not live within walking distance of his childhood home. He had refused his father’s offers to be driven back to his house, offended by the implications. Tim could take care of himself thank you very much.

Although she didn’t directly say it she called for the same reason every single day after that. To make sure he was safe. Sometimes she called more than once a day.

For what it was worth that first night he had nearly gotten into an accident on the way home. She wasn’t wrong to call him. She wasn’t wrong to worry. Tim had a lot of anger that had nowhere to go. Objectively he understood from the outside looking in he was in a scary place.

Sure, Tim found it annoying on more than one level. She had called him at inconvenient moments more times than he could count. But telling her not to call anymore wasn’t an option his heart could handle. He just focused on how good it was to hear her voice.

Or at least that’s what he had done. She hadn’t called yet today. Tim checked his phone every couple seconds to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, but nope. She still hadn’t called.

About an hour after he knew she usually went to bed he tried calling her. It didn’t go through. Which wasn’t that much a cause of concern. She was probably sleeping.

Still, he hoped that she was safe.

***

It was three in the morning when Danny made his first postmortem appearance at Tim’s house. He standing above Tim’s bed looking down at him. His hand was light on Tim’s forehead.

Of course this wouldn’t be the moment Tim would personally mark as the first. He wouldn’t even remember it later. Tim assumed he was dreaming.

In the weeks since they pulled Danny’s body from the opera house he’d scarcely had a dream that didn’t feature Danny. A lot of these dreams were sad, some of them were scary, and more of them than he wanted to admit were inappropriate.

Three in the morning was too early to think properly and too late to care about most things. Tim simply rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.

***

Drinking alone had never been Tim’s thing. He wasn’t truly happy in a bar unless he couldn’t hear what the person next to him was saying over everybody else. Unless it was so crowded that he couldn’t move of his own free will, could only move through the whims of the masses.

The idea of leaving his house was somehow daunting. It had never been that way before, but the world hadn’t made sense in quite some time. Not since Danny was alive. At least he had more than enough beer in the fridge for one man.

At least he wasn’t actually drinking alone. Of course Tim didn’t realize that until Danny passed him another drink.

Tim’s heart may as well have stopped and Danny chuckled, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Tim couldn’t say anything. He tried but his mind forbid it. What happened directly following that was fuzzy.

***

The stereo was so loud it woke Tim up a whole hallway away. He wasn’t surprised to see Danny in the living room. He had known in his bones Danny was responsible before he even got out of bed.

Unsurprised didn’t mean uneffected.

Danny’s eyes softened, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“That may be because I have,” Tim stared straight at Danny trying to find something wrong, something off.

The only thing he could find was the fact that Danny was here.

Danny grabbed him by the hand, “Dance with me.”

Tim let himself be led deeper in the room, “You like this song?”

It was slow and filled with harmonies. Tim couldn’t decide if the lyrics were happy or somber which was fitting for a song about heaven. It was not what Tim imagined when he thought of music and Danny. For that he always envisioned the sort of song a person would put on a work out playlist.

Danny shrugged, “It's a classic.”

They didn’t say much after that. Tim was clumsy. He had always been clumsy compared to Danny, but this was something else. Every few steps it seemed he found a new place to trip on the carpet and Danny would have to catch him. He blamed it on the shock. Danny was a good sport about it.

At some point Tim started crying. Tim couldn’t say when. Maybe he had already been crying when he woke up.

At no point did Tim wonder if he had lost his mind. He already knew the answer was yes in the same way he knew this was in no way connected to that.

***

Tim’s mom still hadn’t called. Perhaps losing the only son she had left had ceased being a constant anxiety. Hopefully that meant she was sleeping better. If anyone deserved it, it would be her.

***

The box of pancake mix was already on the counter next to a frying pans when Tim stumbled into the kitchen. Danny was going through the fridge undoubtedly looking for the maple syrup.

Tim groaned, “Again?”

He was exhausted in ways that Danny probably never had been. Never would be.

“I like pancakes,” Danny closed the fridge syrup in hand.

That much was obvious. It was what they had the two days previous as well. Ever since this had all started.

Of course that wasn’t what Tim was referring to at all, but there was no way to be sure if Danny knew that. Well, there was asking directly, but that hadn’t worked well before.

“If you want something else…” Danny trailed off.

Tim made his way over to the counter, “No. It’s fine.”

It wasn’t like he sick of pancakes or anything. Not yet anyway. He just hadn’t been aware he even had this much pancake mix. Tim couldn’t even remember the last time he had eaten that sort of thing.

Danny gave him a smile that Tim couldn’t quite decipher.

***

It would have been impressive if Tim didn’t catch the football with the way Danny chucked it at him. Tim threw in back on instinct alone. Soon enough they were lost in their game chasing each other all over the house.

The joy was almost enough to make Tim forget that it was his brother’s ghost he was playing with rather than a perfectly alive and well Danny. Almost.

Tim never quite got the hang of football. It was weird that he had one in the house, but maybe Danny had conjured in with his ghostly energy. Danny had been the football star in his teens. There were other physical activities Tim had mastered, rock climbing, kayaking, but never football.

He was quite useless when it came to using his legs like that. Come to think of it that was probably why they were tossing it back and forth rather than playing properly.

Disaster was bound to happen. Before the ball went through the window he was already groaning. Broken windows lead to a paper trail of extra work that Tim did not want to deal with.

Danny was undisturbed, “It’s not like it will stay that way.”

That was easy enough for Danny to say. He was dead. He wasn’t the one that would have to deal with it.

***

There were no more times when Danny would randomly disappear after that. None that Tim could remember at least. He wasn’t always in the same room as Tim, but before he seemed to fade in and out. Danny’s presence was a constant from that point forward.

***

He had never thought of Danny as much of a couch potato, but perhaps death had changed him. He spent a considerable amount of time in front of Tim’s tv. There probably wasn’t much to do around the house. Especially not for someone as passionate or as easily bored as Danny.

The show Danny was watching was bland and forgettable. Tim had been reading a book anyway. Something about Robert Smirke. There was something deeply important to Tim about the book he was reading. He knew it even if he couldn’t access it.

Tim was about to give up on the book and retire when he heard Danny say, “Stay here with me. Please.”

And so he did. How could he have been expected to refuse?

***

Danny was right about the window, by the way. It had somehow fixed itself by the time Tim came back to that room. One would think the football never went through it in the first place.

***

Tim slept, actually slept, less and less. He couldn’t say exactly how much less because everytime he tried to keep track of it time had its way of disappearing. The last time he slept had been a long time ago. Long enough that Tim couldn’t actually remember.

He would still go to bed at night, every night, but instead of sleeping he just cuddled with Danny for an extended amount of time. Tim wasn’t sure when that had started. Danny said it had been that way since they were kids, but that was a damned lie. To say they hadn’t done that since they were kids would have been more accurate.

Danny’s arms made him feel safe and warm which in turn made him uncomfortable. He was supposed to be the one protecting Danny, even if the job he had done in the past was obviously not good enough considering where they were now. Still Tim would turn around every night after a certain amount of time and wrap his arms around Danny back.

They both liked it better that way. There was something special about being tangled up face to face, heartbeat to heartbeat like that.

It was during one of those sessions that Tim finally said it, “You’re dead.”

As long as it had been coming it also came out of nowhere. Tim hadn’t been thinking about that at the time for once.

Danny took a while to respond, “I know.”

Tim burrowed closer into Danny’s chest. There was nothing else he could do.

“I just don’t think it’s helpful to acknowledge it,” he absentmindedly traced a line down Tim’s back.

***

Tim tried more than once to play poker (or at least go fish) with Danny. It was always a failure. Danny always managed to turn it into magician’s card tricks. As annoyed as he would pretend to be, he found it pretty fun.

He would take that secret to his grave.

***

“Have you seen a woman around?” Tim reached for the remote.

Danny hadn’t been watching the tv so much as he’d been watching Tim’s face, “What woman?”

“She’s been looking around the house at all house hours, wandering. She’s—”

He was going to describe her further but found the words stuck in his throat. He couldn’t. She didn’t look like anything in his head.

Danny stroked Tim’s hair, “She isn’t important.”

No. She wasn’t. But she certainly seemed worried.

Tim didn’t bring it up again.

***

Danny had a habit of splashing Tim whenever they did the dishes. They always did the dishes together. It was faster that way, and Danny had to pull his weight somehow.

Whenever Danny splashed Tim, he would splash back. It would quickly escalate into a war. Things always ended the same way, with them both sopping wet and shivering, but the laugh it gave them was more than worth it.

***

Mom was never going to call ever again. Nobody else would either. Tim was starting to understand that now.

***

Tim hadn’t been so happy in a long time. Happy may have been the wrong word. The word happy carried connotations of excitement while this feeling was relaxed. As calm as this feeling was it was every bit as bright. Far brighter actually.

Back when they were kids on those days when they didn’t have school but their parents had work, Tim would make Danny pancakes. When they were really little this usually resulted in a burn or two, but Tim was more than capable by the time he left for college. There was something warm and safe about that time.

They were eating pancakes, and it felt just like one of those days. The feeling was so strong Tim was convinced that even if it weren’t for the pancakes it would still feel that way. Not even Danny’s nonsense question could ruin the mood.

He poured some more syrup over the pancakes, any more and he might have hit the average lethal dosage, “How did you die?”

Tim didn’t respond. He wondered if maybe Danny was confused. Danny was the dead one. He had no answer to that question

“I mean, I already know,” he took a bite, “but I wanna hear it from you.”

Something about the way Danny looked at him made the truth spill out of Tim, even if it was a nonsense truth because he was alive, “I couldn’t have you.”

His eyes were somewhere between broken and fond and his smile crooked, “Don’t you know that I’m all you have?”

Danny kissed him then. It was their first kiss even if something in his soul told him it shouldn’t have been. Tim already knew that every future kiss would feel exactly like this. Alright it probably wouldn’t taste of pancakes every time, but it could be the nine millionth kiss and Tim’s heart would still skip and beat and he’d still smile into it. He would still try to pull Danny closer.

They had lost time to make up for, sure, but they had all the time in the world. There was absolutely nothing to worry about. Not anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
